


Fixer Upper

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Cooking Lessons, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Jyn can burn water, Romantic Comedy, background Baze/Chirrut - Freeform, cooking disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Jyn is not often nice to other people. So when her new neighbours Baze and Chirrut are, she doesn't catch on to what’s happening until it's too late and she's made new friends. Then she has to come up with a way to thank them…Before she knows it, not only is she learning to cook, but she may have made another new friend. Jyn’s not sure she can handle this much sociability.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 한국어 available: [Fixer Upper [한국어 번역]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12659526) by [tyty_wars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyty_wars/pseuds/tyty_wars)



> And now for something completely different: angst-free, light romantic comedy inspired by [this Tumblr post](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/159490300408/imagine-otp-duskenpath-fanaticalqueergeek). 
> 
> Thanks to **ohbeeone** and **youareiron_andyouarestrong** for beta-reading  & encouraging me in my first attempt at longform fluff. (Something about this fandom & pairing is inspiring me to try all sorts of genres for the very first time.)
> 
> And thanks to **Jaded** for creating such a [gorgeous moodboard](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/160849306823/fixer-upper) for it!

When she bought a house, Jyn assumed that would mean less contact with her neighbours than when she lived in an apartment building, not more. Didn’t that make sense? No shared hallways and elevators, no more bumping into people in the laundry room.

But in the first three weeks in her new bungalow, she’d seen her new neighbours more often than she’d seen Bodhi (outside work).

Baze and Chirrut were their names. They came over the day after she moved in, with a bouquet of flowers from their stunning garden—in a vase, because as Chirrut said, “We didn’t want you to have to dig through all your boxes to find something to put it in.”

Jyn was pretty sure she didn’t even _own_ a vase, but whatever. She smiled and said thanks and figured she’d nod at them over the fence a few times a week. They were a handsome couple, both Chinese she thought, and she approved of the fact that they looked like people you wouldn't want to mess with. Chirrut seemed slight next to his husband, but that was only because Baze was built like the proverbial brick house.

Jyn washed the vase and returned it the following week, once the flowers had died. (“Yes, I wrote a thank you note, Bodhi, I'm not a complete barbarian!”) She didn’t realize their relentless campaign of neighbourliness had just started.

After that, it turned into a descending spiral of niceness. The power on the block went out one evening and Chirrut brought over a camping lantern—“I don’t mind being in the dark, but I thought you might.” When Baze heard her cursing and hacking away at the overgrown lilac bush that blocked the kitchen window, he came over and showed her how to prune it back without killing it. Next, the two of them brought over a tureen of hot and sour soup on the day Jyn was home sick with a cold.

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “This means war.” Jyn might be socially awkward and occasionally an asshole, but she wasn’t the kind of asshole who could be rude to people who were truly, genuinely nice. So she gritted her teeth and resigned herself to being neighbourly to Mr and Mr Nice, as she’d started calling them in her head.

At this point, she decided, retaliation was called for. But saying Jyn couldn’t cook was like saying pigs couldn’t fly spaceships; giving them anything she’d made with her own hands wouldn’t be wise. Instead, she brought over a selection of fancy pastries from the bakery by her job to say thanks. (They made her come in and have one with a cup of tea.)

She still didn’t understand why her new neighbours were so bent on being kind to her until the first hot day in June, when Baze came over to help her clean out the gutters.

He must have seen her struggling with the ladder—okay, first of all, she’d never had to use an extendable ladder before, and this thing was brand new from Home Depot. And wasn’t that an unpleasant surprise of home ownership? All the expensive tools and other shit you had to buy, in order to take care of the shit that hadn’t been your responsibility to maintain when you lived in an apartment...

Jyn’s cranky inner monologue was interrupted by Baze lifting the sagging ladder with one hand and hefting the whole thing onto his broad shoulder.

“I've got it,” she said breathlessly.

“No worries,” he said with a grin.

And, of course, with someone taller to help reach the awkward places, the job undeniably went a lot faster. Jyn tried not to give into despair at the fact she hadn’t been born with the genes to reach even five foot four.

After they'd dumped the last wheelbarrow load of soggy leaves on Baze’s compost pile, he wiped his forehead and polished his fogged glasses with a corner of his t-shirt. “That’s hot work. Come and have a glass of lemonade.”

Jyn was going to say no thanks, really she was. But she loved lemonade. The thought of the sweet-tart liquid hitting her parched throat made her mouth water and before she knew it she was sitting on her neighbours’ porch—they had white wicker furniture with blue striped cushions—drinking half a glass in one swallow.

“Where’s Chirrut?” she asked.

“Oh, he teaches a tai chi class on Saturday mornings. One of the students gives him a ride home.”

Jyn fidgeted in her chair while Baze refilled her glass from the sweating pitcher. All of this relentless kindness was just too much for her to accept blindly.

She might as well ask; Baze seemed someone who appreciated blunt honesty, like her. After another sip of lemonade, she finally came out with it. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Baze grinned. He knew what she was trying to ask, but he wasn’t going to make it easy.

Jyn snorted. “Because I’m a total stranger and all you know about me is that I can afford a house in this neighbourhood. Barely,” she added, thinking of her mortgage.

“That’s not quite all we know about you. Let’s just say we’re happy to finally have a pleasant neighbour,” Baze said.

Jyn swallowed an ice cube and almost choked. She was pretty sure no-one else who actually knew her—not even Bodhi—would refer to her as pleasant.

“The couple who lived there before…” Baze frowned and swirled the ice in his glass. “They weren't the friendliest. I didn’t much care, but it hurt Chirrut’s feelings.”

How could anyone be rude to Chirrut? Jyn wondered. He seemed both too sweet and too intimidating for that to make sense. She wouldn’t want to cross him.

“They acted like we had gay cooties. Wouldn't say hello, didn’t let their kid trick or treat at our house on Halloween.”

“Wow, they sound like real jerks. I fully support kids getting candy any way they can.” Jyn put down her empty glass. “Not that I’ve ever had to think about it before, since no one went trick or treating in my apartment building.”

Baze laughed. “Well, Hallowe'en is a big deal in this neighbourhood, so you’d better be prepared. Fair warning, Chirrut goes all out for it—wait until you see the decorations he makes me put up.”

“Decorations?” Jyn raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t those kind of wasted on a blind man?”

“They all make scary noises,” Baze said gloomily, and despite herself Jyn laughed.

And that did it. She couldn’t help feeling like she had to make a big gesture the next time her neighbours did something sweet—which, of course, was sooner rather than later.

 

So Monday morning at her desk, instead of preparing Mothma’s court filing, Jyn fell down an Internet rabbit hole of searching for “easy entertaining” recipes. All of them still looked way too complicated for her to handle; they used words like sautéing and dicing and whisking.

“Bodhi, do you think your mum could teach me how to cook by Saturday?”

Bodhi must have heard the desperation in Jyn’s voice, because he actually stood up and peered over the cubicle wall between them. “Not unless you’re prepared to spend four hours listening to her explain why you have to grind cardamom right before you use it. And why the hell are you trying to cook? Didn’t you learn anything from last Thanksgiving?”

Jyn tabbed between the multiple cooking sites open on her screen, her fingers clicking faster and faster on the keys. “Mr and Mr Nice won’t quit. They saw me mowing the lawn yesterday and came over to give me peony roots from their garden.”

“Did you tell them you have whatever kind of thumb is worse than black?” Bodhi asked. He was being kind; gangrenous might be the best way to describe it.

“Chirrut says peonies can’t be killed by conventional means.” Jyn groaned and buried her face in her hands. “They’re just too nice. I panicked and invited them over for dinner. Now there's no way around it.”

“A meal cooked by you is not a reward. Buy them an expensive bottle of wine instead.”

“Baze doesn’t drink.”

“Then get takeout.” Bodhi shrugged in the callous manner of a man who’s able to live off the leftovers from his mother’s Sunday dinner all week.

“No. I’m going to cook something, dammit.” Jyn threw her shoulders back and narrowed her eyes at the recipe for coq au vin on her screen. “And you have to come over too. So I can prove that I have social skills and know other nice people.”

Bodhi sighed. “Buy dessert, at least. That way you know one thing will be edible.”

 

On Tuesday, while Jyn waited for Bodhi at the pub after work, she was still hunting for recipes on her phone. She’d tried searching for cooking classes too, but there were none in the area that started within the next three days.

She was screwed. So much for serving her neighbours a home-cooked meal like a functional adult. She was going to have to admit that thanks to her eccentric upbringing, she had no life skills whatsoever, other than the ability to knock someone twice her size on their ass.

“Jyn, I’ve just saved your bacon. Literally.” Bodhi clapped his hands on her shoulders from behind.

Jyn flinched and her phone clattered to the bar. “Dammit, Rook, don’t sneak up on me like that!” She spun around on her stool and poked him in the belly, going straight for his ticklish spot.

Bodhi twisted out of her reach and grinned. “This is my friend Cassian. He works for Draven up on twelve, I’ve mentioned him before.”

Jyn was pretty sure he hadn’t, or at least he hadn’t mentioned said friend was cute in a scruffy kind of way, but she gave a little wave and said hi. Cassian had a battered leather jacket and a reserved air that Jyn liked. He seemed, not exactly unfriendly, but at least as skeptical of human interaction in general as she was.

“So what’s your cunning plan?” Jyn was automatically dubious about any idea Bodhi came up with, but it wasn’t like she had a lot of options at this point.

Bodhi flourished his hands at Cassian like a magician, or someone from the shopping channel displaying a time-limited special offer. “Cassian has a side gig as a caterer. He’ll come to your house on Saturday and cook dinner.”

“Seriously?” Jyn leaned back against the bar, raising her eyebrows. That could be perfect.

“Yeah,” Cassian said. “You pay me for the ingredients and my time. I come over, make dinner in your kitchen, and leave.”

“Is there much of a market for that service?” She was honestly curious; it seemed a little niche.

He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many rich people can’t cook but want to make it look like they can.”

“Well, I’m not rich.” Jyn folded her arms across her chest. “What do you charge?”

“That depends on what you want to serve. For something simple, like roast chicken for four people?” He named an amount that was frankly outrageous. Jyn coughed as her beer went down the wrong way.

“For that much, I could take them out to dinner at a nice restaurant!” she protested.

“Yeah, but you want to have dinner in your home and give people the impression that you cooked it. I can do that. Besides, I do all the grocery shopping and prep work.”

“You don’t do dishes, for that price?”

“No. That’s on you.”

“Dishes? What dishes?” Bodhi rolled his eyes. “Do you even have a roasting pan?”

“Yes, I do!” Then Jyn remembered the Thanksgiving Turkey Travesty, as Bodhi liked to call it. “But I think it might be ruined?”

Cassian blew out a breath and shook his head. “Give me your number. I’ll text you a list of cooking stuff. Tell me what you don’t have and I’ll buy it.”

“And add it to the bill, of course?” She looked darkly at him over the rim of her pint.

“Of course,” he agreed, not taking her bait.

“Then it’s a deal.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook it firmly.

 

On Wednesday, Cassian texted her:

_What about dessert?_

_Bodhi said to buy it_

_Good call_  
_But what are you going to buy?_  
_It shouldn’t be too rich since the_  
_rub for the chicken is pretty spicy_

 _There’s a bakery down the block_  
_from work. I was thinking lemon_  
_meringue pie?_

[thumbs up emoji]

On Thursday, he sent her a long list of kitchen stuff, half of which might as well have been in Sanskrit. Bowls and cutting boards she had, but she didn’t even know what a garlic press looked like. When she texted that back Cassian replied with an eyerolling emoji and _I figured_.

On Friday afternoon, she texted him in a panic:

  
_What if Chirrut wants something  
to drink? Should I serve wine?_

_No, beer. Negra Modelo  
if you can get it_

 

Saturday afternoon Jyn had just gotten out of the shower after spending the morning in a frenzy of house-cleaning—seriously, that was yet another downside to home ownership. More living space meant more space to clean. And how could it get so messy so fast, when she was the only one living here?

The doorbell rang as she was pulling on her jeans and she cursed, remembering the time. When she stumbled down the hall and answered the door, Cassian shoved a box full of mysterious objects at her. “Take this to the kitchen. I’ve got more groceries to bring in from the car.”

She watched as he unpacked boxes and bags full of miscellaneous tools, pots, jars, and food. “What’s on the menu?”

“Roast chicken, rice pilaf, and a green salad. Pretty boring, frankly, but Bodhi said anything more complicated would be implausible.” He eyed her dubiously.

“Bodhi’s an arse.” Jyn made a rude noise. “But he’s not wrong. I really am terrible at cooking, I’ve burned water before.”

At his direction she stored an amazing variety of vegetables in the fridge—“for the salad,” he explained—some of which she wasn’t even sure were edible.

“What the hell is this?” Jyn asked, holding up a white bulb with short green stalks and feathery bits. “Looks like a weird sex toy,” she muttered into the crisper drawer.

“It’s fennel.” Cassian barely held back a laugh.

She couldn’t help hovering while he started working. It was sort of interesting, seeing what all the strange kitchen tools were used for. And she’d had no idea there were little bits and bobs left inside the chicken that had to be removed before you cooked it. Why would they do that? Didn’t it make more sense to sell it ready to go in the oven, without any extraneous organs?

“If you’re going to be in here, you need to be working,” Cassian said without looking at her. “Otherwise, get lost.”

Jyn twisted her fingers restlessly. She didn’t think she could sit around in the living room, trying to read or watch TV and wondering what Cassian was up to in the kitchen. “What can I do?”

He threw an apron at her. “Put that on, wash your hands, and chop some onions.”

Jyn tied the apron on, rolling her eyes, and went through her drawers until she found a cutting board and a bread knife.

“Not that one,” he said, and pointed to a canvas roll on the counter. “Use one of those.”

“You brought your own knives?” Jyn snorted. She’d finally met someone who was an even bigger control freak than she was.

“I didn’t think you’d have any decent ones, and it turns out I was right.”

Choosing the biggest knife—because it was a big onion—Jyn got the cutting board set up on the counter and peeled away the papery skin. At least she knew that had to come off first.

“Holy Mary, who taught you to hold a knife? How do you still have all your fingers?” Cassian demanded, staring at Jyn in wide-eyed horror. “Give me that.”

Taking the knife from her, he briefly molded his fingers around hers to demonstrate the grip . “Like this. And be careful, I don’t have time for a trip to the ER this afternoon.” He watched her chop for a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to sever a fingertip. “Rich or poor?” he asked.

Jyn looked sideways at him, confused.

Cassian clicked his tongue. “Watch the knife. I meant, did you grow up rich or poor? Most of the people I meet who can’t cook, it’s one or the other.”

“Neither. Orphan,” Jyn said shortly, used to cutting the conversation off with that statement. She thought of Saw with her usual mix of half-affection, half-resentment.

“Oh. My parents died when I was six.” So Cassian knew what it was like. She looked up at him and they exchanged the rueful smile of people tired of being asked about their parents and then forced to listen to awkward apologies.

After that things were relatively peaceful as she clumsily chopped vegetables and Cassian ground spices and did other bizarre things Jyn didn’t have the vocabulary for. He let her help with the rice, too, but refused to let her anywhere near the chicken.

Jyn grabbed a beer and boosted herself up to sit on the counter on the other side of the sink, where they hadn’t been making a mess.

“That’s unsanitary,” Cassian said, but he didn’t sound all that annoyed.

Jyn shrugged. “I’ll have to clean the counter later anyway.”

She made a disgusted face as Cassian gathered up handfuls of the spice mix and rubbed it all over the chicken in a vaguely obscene manner, inside and out and under the skin, before he plopped it into her brand new, shiny roasting pan.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” she said on impulse. “You made tons of food, there’s going to be way too much. And Bodhi’s coming over too.”

Cassian turned to the sink to wash his greasy hands. Jyn pushed the tap up so he wouldn’t have to touch it to run the water.

“Are you sure?” he asked, looking up at her through his floppy mess of hair and his stupid long eyelashes. Really, some people were just ridiculously good-looking. Why was he also a good cook? That seemed like an unfair distribution of talents.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it,” Jyn snapped, and then instantly regretted it.

But Cassian didn’t seem offended. “Yeah, I’d like to stay.” He dried his hands and watched her pick at the label of her beer. "You're pretty nervous about this, aren't you?"

"I’m not much for socializing, as you've probably noticed. And Chirrut and Baze have been really nice and I want them to like me and Bodhi and—"

"Hey." He nudged her knee gently. "Go set the table or something. We've got this."

"Okay." Jyn slid down from the counter and cleared out of the kitchen before she got really squirrelly.

By the time her guests arrived Jyn had started to relax, partly because of the second beer Cassian had pressed into her hands. The kitchen smelled amazing, nothing was on fire (yet—she knocked on the dining room table), and Bodhi showed up with another six pack of imported beer. Baze and Chirrut rang the doorbell shortly afterward and the business of greetings, taking jackets, offering drinks, and showing Chirrut to a chair helped distract her too.

Jyn made the introductions all around. "Chirrut and Baze, my unreasonably nice neighbours. This is Bodhi, he's my best friend and we work in the same office."

“And this must be your young man?” Chirrut smiled, holding his hand out for Cassian to shake.

Bodhi smothered a laugh with his fist and Jyn glared at him, obscurely offended. Was it such a crazy idea for her to have a boyfriend?

“Cassian’s just a friend of ours,” she said, and pulled an apologetic face. Why had she said “just”? That only made it sound weird. Weirder.

Fortunately, the timer went off at that moment and Jyn was able to escape to the kitchen. She was so nervous that she almost forgot to put oven mitts on before she carefully pulled the pan out and set it on the stove top. She stared at the glistening, crispy chicken, the fluffy rice and the fresh green salad. Everything looked great and smelled even better; she couldn’t believe she’d had a hand in cooking a meal this mouthwatering. Of course, Cassian had done almost all of the work, but still.

 

The chicken tasted as good as it smelled, and dinner went even better than Jyn had dared to hope. Chirrut and Baze were wonderful guests, of course, telling funny anecdotes about Chirrut's students and Baze's job. (Jyn still hadn't figured out what he did, except that it was some kind of security consultant gig; frankly, it sounded like he might be a mercenary.) But Bodhi, too, was as charming as he could be—which was pretty charming—and even Cassian displayed an unexpected sense of humour as he told stories about working for the public prosecutor's office.

At one point, Jyn looked around the table and thought that she'd never have expected to enjoy herself so much at a dinner that looked like a Norman Rockwell painting. It was... nice, having more than one person in the world that she could consider a friend now. She might not call on any of them to help her hide a body (that wasn’t true, she'd totally ask Baze first) but they were more than acquaintances. Even Cassian seemed like someone she'd known for more than just a few hours. It was strange how comfortable she felt around him—around all of them.

Of course, that was when disaster struck.

Bodhi and Cassian had cleared everyone's empty plates while Jyn brewed a pot of tea and took dessert out of the fridge. She was carrying the pie proudly across the hallway when her toe caught the curled-up edge of the old rug she’d been meaning to replace.

Jyn went sprawling across the hall. The pie flew out of her hands and launched in a high arc, tumbling over and over until it landed with a loud squelch flat on the floor just inside the dining room. Egg meringue and lemon curd splattered over everything in a five-foot radius.

Jyn unleashed a blazing stream of profanity and Baze raised his eyebrows in a respectfully impressed fashion. Bodhi looked like someone had killed a puppy in front of him (lemon meringue was his favourite). Cassian looked wary, as though he were expecting her to grab one of his knives from the kitchen and go on a murderous rampage.

Chirrut just laughed delightedly. “I assume dessert is a casualty?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jyn muttered despondently as she struggled up from her knees, staring at the mess on the hardwood floor. Crap, there was lemon curd halfway up the walls.

"Baze, why don't you go and take some ice cream out of our freezer," Chirrut suggested.

Jyn opened her mouth to insist that they didn't have to, but Baze beat her to it. "You’d be doing me a favour. Chirrut always buys rocky road even though he knows I don’t like it."

Bodhi stood up. “Cassian and I can clean up. I know where the mop is."

Jyn blinked, her foul mood punctured like a balloon. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Get some bowls and spoons," Cassian said, taking her shoulders and pushing her gently toward the kitchen.

 

After impromptu sundaes with chocolate sauce and whipped cream Jyn dug out of the fridge (“What? They’re staples,” she’d said defensively), Baze and Chirrut said their goodbyes. Jyn had a feeling she’d be invited over to their house for a reciprocatory meal soon, but the thought didn’t worry her as much as it once would have. Bodhi stayed long enough to help with the dishes and took at least half of the leftover chicken with him.

Jyn helped Cassian pack up the kitchen tools that belonged to him and carried one of the boxes out to his car. After they loaded his trunk, they stood looking at each other for an awkward moment before Jyn remembered that she owed him money.

“Thank you, Cassian.” She fished a cheque out of her back pocket and shoved it at him. “It was worth every penny. Seriously.”

“You’re welcome.” He folded it away in his jacket. “Thanks for inviting me to dinner.”

“Hey, you got to watch a pie explode, that must have been entertaining.” She scuffed the toe of her shoe along the concrete.

“It certainly was.” Cassian’s mouth quirked up on one side and she caught herself staring at the dimple that resulted. He leaned against his car, apparently in no hurry to leave either. “You could definitely use some actual cooking lessons, though. I’m concerned about your knife skills. You looked like you were about to stab someone, not chop an onion.”

“It’s the martial arts training, I guess.” Jyn pushed a hand through her bangs. She wanted to say yes, but reminded herself that Cassian wasn’t offering to do her a favour. “I’d like that, but honestly my budget is pretty tight now that I have a mortgage. I don’t think I can afford it.”

“On the house.” Cassian touched her elbow lightly. “You’re Bodhi’s friend, I’m Bodhi’s friend, that gets you the friends and family special.”

“Well. Okay then.” The grin spreading across her face was probably too obvious and goofy, but Jyn couldn’t hide it. She’d better get away before she did something really silly. “Goodnight.”

She noticed that Cassian waited for her to walk back up the steps of her house before he drove away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is far outside my normal register, but writing it turned out to be enormous fun! Thanks again to **ohbeeone** and **youareiron_andyouarestrong** for beta-reading, to **Jaded** for creating the [perfect moodboard](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/160849306823/fixer-upper), and to everyone who liked, commented, kudosed, etc and encouraged me to finish.

By Monday morning, Jyn had had enough time to do what she always did when it came to people, which was second-guess herself. She shouldn’t have taken Cassian literally. He'd probably just offered to be polite, without expecting her to say yes; he must be really busy, especially if he still did freelance catering gigs on top of a fulltime job. At least once an hour she glanced at her phone sitting on the desk and considered texting him, but didn’t. 

Then he showed up to meet Bodhi for lunch on Tuesday. He poked his head around the side of her cubicle and said, “So when’s a good time for your first lesson?”

Jyn blinked. “Um, any night this week really. Except Friday, I've got a boxing thing...” She trailed off. Her cheeks felt hot. Goddammit, was she _blushing_?

“Boxing?” He cocked his head and looked at her consideringly. “I can see that, you’d have the footwork for it. Saturday works for me—5 o’clock okay?”

She nodded.

From the elevator, Bodhi hollered, “If we don’t go now, we’ll be in line at the food truck for half an hour.”

“Can we get you anything?” Cassian asked.

“No thanks, I had an early lunch.”

“Come on, Cassian!”

He jogged off down the hall. “I’ll text you,” he called over his shoulder. 

She couldn’t stop grinning at her phone when he sent her a grocery list a few hours later.

 

“So I figured we’d start off by learning how to make an omelette,” Cassian said. “It’s cheap and easy.”

Jyn very much doubted it. “Yeah, right.”

“It is,” Cassian insisted. “Plus, chopping vegetables is a good way to practice your knife skills.”

He’d brought his own knives again, so Jyn picked one out and he helped her adjust her grip until it felt right. “Good. Now, this is how to fold your fingers in so they won’t get sliced.” 

She awkwardly worked at cutting an onion into small, even squares instead of lopsided chunks while he set out a stack of empty bowls and started grating a hunk of strong cheddar.

“So how’d you learn to hold a knife like you mean business?” he asked.

“After my parents died, my godfather took me in. He was big on self-defense.”

“But not much of a cook?”

“Saw was a lot of things—a communist, a radical environmentalist, an all-round paranoid eccentric—but not really a homemaker.” Jyn laughed a little bitterly. “He made sure I got a couple of black belts, though. I could probably kick your ass.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you.” Cassian’s mouth quirked again in that one-sided, dimpled smile.

“I loved him, and I know he loved me, but he wasn’t really cut out to be a parent. Plus, he was vegan, and I hated tofu and barley. I used to live mostly off fast food and hide the wrappers so he wouldn’t lecture me about factory farming.” 

This bloody onion was too strong. Jyn sniffed, blinked and refocused on the knife blade, trying to chop the slippery wedges into finer pieces without cutting herself. “What about you? How'd you learn to cook?” she asked in a transparent bid to change the subject.

“My grandmother raised me after my parents passed.” Cassian tipped the grated cheese into a bowl. “By the time I was in middle school she was getting a little frail, so I did most of the cooking.”

The onion was as chopped as it was going to get; Jyn dumped it into another bowl. Then she picked up an orange bell pepper and stared at it, not sure where or how to start with it. Cassian grabbed another one and showed her how to cut the top off, slice away the white bits inside, and get rid of the seeds. 

“I worked my way through undergrad as a prep cook, but when I was in law school, I figured out that catering worked better for my schedule—I could set my own hours. Anyway, I’ve always liked cooking.” He shrugged. “It’s predictable. Follow a recipe and you know what you’re going to get.”

“No, you don’t!” Jyn protested. “I can read just fine, I always follow the instructions, and I still end up with something inedible.”

“That’s just because you don’t know some of the background techniques. But those can be learned.” 

Jyn looked over at Cassian’s cutting board. His pile of red pepper squares was neat, uniform, perfectly even; hers looked like a toddler had chopped them in the dark. Clearly, learning was going to take a while. 

“Your filling is ready, now it’s time for the eggs.” He pointed at her utensil drawer. “Grab a whisk and have at it.”

Jyn cracked eggs into a bowl with abandon—breaking things she was good at—and whisked them into a froth. Meanwhile, Cassian got out two frying pans and tossed a lump of butter in each. “The most important thing to remember when making an omelette is that it goes fast. Be sure you have everything else ready before you start cooking the eggs.”

“And you’re still trying to tell me this is easy?” Jyn grumbled.

“Making them presentable can be tricky, sure. But it doesn’t matter what they look like in the end, they’ll still taste good.” He smiled at her as he lifted a pan off the heat and deftly swirled the softening butter, and Jyn thought she might be about to melt too. “Chef’s secret—if it falls apart, you just finish it under the broiler and call it a frittata instead.”

Cassian beckoned her over in front of the stove. “We’re going to do this together, okay? Watch what I do and follow along. If you get stuck, let me know.”

He talked her through the process, narrating how to pour the eggs in, push them to the centre of the pan as they set, and keep tilting it to help them cook. Jyn took a deep breath, clenched her hand tight around the handle of her frying pan, and tried to copy everything Cassian did. He helped once, when her eggs got a little stuck, but even then he didn’t take over, just put his hand over hers on the spatula and showed her how to delicately work the edges loose. 

Miracle of miracles, Jyn didn’t burn her omelette. She even managed to flip it over onto a plate without dropping it on the floor.

Cassian handed her a fork and they ate standing up in the kitchen. Like the vegetables, their omelettes were obviously mismatched. Hers was lumpy and unevenly browned with bits of red pepper poking out. His was smooth and golden, a perfect oval. Jyn would have been discouraged, if this weren’t literally the first thing she’d ever cooked that hadn’t ended up as a lump of charcoal. 

She took another bite and her teeth jarred on something unexpectedly hard and crunchy. “ _Ow_.” She put her plate down on the counter and poked through the omelette with her fork. “I think I left some eggshell in there.”

Cassian swallowed quickly, and his lips twitched. “A little extra calcium never hurt anyone.”

 

Cooking lessons were usually Friday or Saturday night; it was easier for both of them to find free time on the weekends. And the tradition of Cassian staying for dinner continued, because he didn’t seem capable of cooking in quantities to feed fewer than a crowd. So he’d teach her how to make something, they’d eat it together, split up the leftovers, and then do the dishes before he went home. 

By August, besides an omelette, Jyn could grill a steak and make a simple tomato pasta sauce without any major disasters. (Minor ones, such as eggshells in the omelette mixture, didn’t count.) She’d even been brave enough to attempt baking a pan of brownies on her own. They were dry on the edges and soggy in the middle; but they weren’t charred, and they undeniably tasted like brownies. She was so proud she gave most of them away to Baze and Chirrut.

Cassian decided this meant she was ready for something a little more advanced. “Once you know how to make a basic white sauce,” he explained, “it’s a building block for lots of other recipes.” 

He got her set up cooking the butter and flour, or roux as he called it, and ran out to the store for more cheese. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t panic.”

“I can manage,” Jyn insisted. 

She should have known better than to get cocky, because of course that was the time she took her eye off the stove for thirty seconds to pour herself a glass of water, and all hell broke loose. 

The air was suddenly acrid and burning. The smoke alarm shrieked, the noise pulsing in spikes through Jyn’s head. "Shit!" She rushed to open the window and threw the smoking pot into the sink, where it sizzled and popped. 

The front door slammed and Cassian appeared in the kitchen, his eyes wide.

"I ruined it." Jyn swore and flapped a dish towel under the sensor to clear the hazy air.

"Hey, it happens to everyone. Don't sweat it." With the advantage of height and a longer reach, Cassian reached up to press the button on the alarm, silencing it. His shoulders strained the thin fabric of his grey t-shirt, and she caught a glimpse of his abs before she looked away quickly. 

"There goes dinner," Jyn muttered into the sudden quiet, still embarrassed and cranky. She didn't want to admit how much she'd been enjoying Cassian's company for these occasional meals. Now he didn’t have any reason to stay.

He shrugged. "So we’ll order in. What do you feel like?"

They settled on pizza from a local place Baze had recommended, and decided to start a movie while they waited for it to be delivered. That led to an argument over which sci-fi classic to watch. Cassian turned out to be a Star Trek fan, which was terrible, but Jyn magnanimously decided not to hold it against him. They compromised on _Aliens_ , which had always been one of Jyn’s comfort movies. By the time the pizza arrived—it was good, home-made sausage on thin crust—they were already deep in the throes of a debate over which marine was the best.

Cassian jumped and almost dropped the slice in his hand on the floor when the xenomorph finally attacked. “It’s been awhile since I saw this,” he said sheepishly. 

There was something about watching a scary move that made people gravitate closer together without even realizing it. Jyn sat down a fraction nearer to Cassian after she got up to get them a second beer. The second time he startled at the movie, he grabbed for her arm and then let go quickly. Newt hiding in the ducts was the only part of the movie that had ever scared Jyn; she clutched a pillow in front of herself and turned her forehead into Cassian's shoulder for a brief moment when she couldn’t bear to watch. 

That was as close as Jyn got to flirting. Unfortunately, Cassian didn’t seem inclined to notice. Part of Jyn wanted to curl up and lean into Cassian’s side; she wondered whether he would put his arm around her if she did. Instead she wrapped her arms tighter around the pillow.

But it had been a long week at work—Mothma had just taken on a complex case defending a whistleblower in civil court and the whole firm had been working overtime until the filing was complete. Jyn was exhausted and with a belly full of pizza and two beers, she was so sleepy that even Ripley with a flamethrower wasn’t enough to keep her eyes open. She could feel her chin sagging down on the pillow she was still holding to her chest, but she was too tired to care. She just hoped she wouldn’t start drooling...

 

Jyn woke with a throw pillow under her cheek and the blanket she kept folded on the back of the couch tucked around her. 

She raised her head, blinking. The TV was off and Cassian was gone—the pizza had been cleared away, the empty boxes and the beer bottles put in the recycling. Her house looked cleaner than it had before they started watching the movie. 

Jyn wandered into the kitchen and flicked the kettle on for a late night (early morning?) cup of tea. She slumped against the counter, arms crossed, and yawned jaw-crackingly wide. There was no reason to be so disappointed. She didn’t know if Cassian wasn’t into women in general, or just her specifically, but whichever it was didn’t matter. Jyn felt like she’d been pretty obvious, but he clearly hadn’t been interested in responding to any of her signals. 

Story of her life. She sighed and gulped down a mouthful of tea that was still too hot. At least she was learning a life skill. And, she reminded herself, it was good to have made a new friend. 

 

“Is Friday date night this week?”

“Date night?” Jyn could feel her eyebrows scrunch together in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Jyn.” Bodhi leaned his elbows on the divider between their cubicles. “Cassian goes over to your house for dinner almost every weekend. And now he says you’ve started watching movies after too. On what planet is that not a date?”

“This planet, because we’re not dating?” Jyn waved her hands around, a little panicky. “And there’s no kissing, or anything else, going on? It’s just cooking lessons, Bodhi.”

“Which he’s not charging you for. Despite it being one of his jobs.”

“Well, he said we were friends now…” She lifted her chin and glared at Bodhi. “Which we _are_. And it’s nice. So don’t make me feel weird about it.”

“There’s nothing weird about having friends, Jyn.” Bodhi shook his head. “What’s weird is the two of you trying to act like you’re just friends when you really want to jump each other’s bones.”

“Yeah, trust me, that’s not the case.” Jyn sighed, thinking of last Saturday night.

 

By October, Cassian had decided she was ready to learn how to make mole. This was a big deal, apparently, and his grandmother would spin in her grave if Jyn ever passed the Andors’ secret recipe on to someone else, so she had to cross her heart and promise that no-one would get it out of her.

It actually didn’t seem that difficult, though the Jyn of just a few weeks ago would have considered it impossible. But it did involve a very long list of ingredients and a lot of complicated preparation. There were half a dozen different kinds of dried chiles, for example, that all had to be first seeded, then chopped, then fried in lard, and then rehydrated. 

“This is going to take hours,” Jyn complained.

“It’s worth it,” Cassian promised. “Trust me.” He leaned down to scrape a heap of chile seeds into the garbage. 

An eyelash or something in the corner of her eye was driving Jyn nuts. She absentmindedly put down her knife and reached up to rub her eye.

“Don’t!” Cassian leaped up and reached for her, but he was too late.

It felt like someone had shoved a burning match into Jyn’s eye. She yelped, and tried to rub her eye again out of reflex. “No, no—” Cassian grabbed her hand. “You’ll make it worse!”

Her eye was blazing, streaming with hot tears, and she couldn’t stop blinking. The pain was getting hotter and more intense with every second. “Hang on, Jyn, just a second.” Cassian released her hand and she let out a whimper. She clenched her hands into fists, fighting the urge to rub her eye.

Cassian threw open the fridge. “ _Leche, leche_ ,” he muttered. Jyn couldn’t see, but she could tell by the noises that he was pushing things aside, grabbing a bottle of something, and pouring it out. Then a cool wetness was on her abused eye, and whatever it was made the sting fade almost magically. 

Cautiously, Jyn managed to open her other eye. Cassian was so close she could feel his sweater against her bare arms, holding a damp tea towel to her face and peering down at her with concern. “Better?”

“Yeah,” she sniffled. Her eye was still overflowing with tears, but at least it wasn’t in fiery agony any more. “What is that?”

“Milk,” he said. “I don’t know why that works, but it does. Water only makes it worse.” Cassian smoothed her hair out of her face and adjusted the cloth over her sore eye, pressing it down gently. It felt blissfully cool. 

Jyn sighed in relief. “Thanks.” 

She tried to take the compress out of his hand and hold it herself, but Cassian wouldn’t let go. With his other hand he was still holding her hair carefully back and his gentle touch on her cheek was soothing. “Wait a minute, okay? Let your eye calm down and then wash your hands really, really well.”

“Okay.” She breathed carefully, trying not to brush up against his body, still so close. 

“I’m sorry I forgot to warn you about the chiles.” He still looked worried, his brows pinched together with small parallel bars between them. Jyn wanted to reach up and press them out of his skin with her thumb. 

“It’s not your fault I was an idiot.”

He lifted the cloth away from her eye at last. “Alright now?”

“Yeah.” She blinked and a drop of milk trickled down her cheek until it caught on the border of her mouth. She licked it away automatically, curling her tongue over her lip. 

Cassian was still watching her; she saw his eyes flicker, tracking the movement of her tongue. His hand flexed briefly in her hair. She looked back up at him, his long lashes outlined in gold and his eyes amber in the late afternoon sun. Her lungs were constricted, she couldn't take a deep breath. She felt lightheaded.

She didn't know who leaned in first, or whether he bent his head before she lifted up on her toes. Before she had a moment to think about what was happening, he had dropped the cloth to the floor and she'd fisted her hands in his shirt and her mouth was on his and they were kissing.

Jyn’s eye was still sore and her face was sticky with drying milk. But she forgot all of that at the touch of Cassian’s mouth fitting over hers, slow and sweet. Something between the two of them clicked and settled like a key in a lock. She gasped into his lips when he tilted his head, and then laughed when he licked away another bead of milk on her cheek. “I need to wash my face. And my hands.”

“Yes,” he agreed, but didn’t let her go.

Her calves were starting to cramp from staying pushed up on her toes. Jyn sagged back down, reluctantly pulling away, and Cassian made an impatient noise. He shuffled forward and she moved backward, as though they were dancing, until her back hit the edge of the counter. She grabbed his shoulders with a squeak as he curled his hands under her thighs and lifted her up to sit on it. Then his mouth was back on hers.

Things were definitely much easier now that she wasn’t standing on tiptoe, but Jyn couldn’t resist giving Cassian a hard time. “You said. This. Was unsanitary,” she managed to get out, punctuated by kisses. 

“I’m reconsidering.” Cassian slid his hands up to her waist and Jyn locked her ankles around his thighs to pull him in closer. She took advantage of the improved angle to brush her lips from the corner of his mouth, across his cheek, and investigate the hollow under his ear. Kissing him there drew a low rumble out of his throat. 

“We could have been doing this on the couch last week,” she murmured into his neck. “Much more comfortable.”

Cassian laughed and his shoulders vibrated under her palms. “I tried to get up the nerve to make a move all night long,” he said. “Then I looked over and you were out like a light. I thought if I bored you that much, you couldn’t be interested.”

“Wrong.” Jyn dotted kisses along his jaw, the rough texture of his beard dragging against her lips. “So wrong. If you’d given me an incentive to stay awake…”

Cassian turned his head to find her mouth again; she lost her train of thought and the inclination to do anything but taste him.

Eventually—it might have been two minutes later, or two hours—Jyn pulled away and framed his face with her hands, resting her thumbs on his jaw and sifting her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck. “What about the sauce?”

“Who cares,” Cassian said against her lips. “That's not what I'm hungry for right now.”

As punishment for such a cheesy line, Jyn rucked his sweater up to tickle him, but the warm solidity of his bare back under her fingertips distracted her. 

Dinner that night turned out to be cheese and crackers in bed. Jyn had no complaints.

 

For Thanksgiving, Baze and Chirrut hosted an annual potluck for some of Chirrut’s students and Baze’s co-workers who were far from home and didn’t have local family. Jyn and Cassian brought pumpkin cheesecake. Most of the guests cleared out shortly after the mid-afternoon meal; a few hung around until they discovered that the football game wouldn’t be on, and then left.

Chirrut waited until it was just the four of them and they’d moved on to second helpings of dessert—the cheesecake, three kinds of pie, and vinarterta someone from Iceland had brought—to drop a bombshell. “We’re moving out.” 

Jyn dropped her fork on the tablecloth. “What? Why?” Under the table, Cassian’s hand cupped her knee soothingly.

“I’m getting old,” Baze said flatly.

“ _We’re_ getting old.” Chirrut corrected him.

“And house maintenance is too much work for a couple of old men, one of whom can’t see. So we’re moving into a condo downtown.”

“I can help,” Jyn offered. “Cassian and I can help. We could do the maintenance for you.”

Chirrut smiled in her direction. “Jyn, my dear, you are kind to offer. But we do want a smaller space. And it’s not as though we’re moving far away; we’ll still be in the same city.”

“Have you already sold the house?” she asked desperately. Maybe she could still convince them not to go.

“Chirrut’s student Luke happened to mention that his sister was pregnant and she and her partner were looking for a bigger place. It was perfect timing,” Baze said. 

“They’re a lovely young couple, you’ll like them.” Chirrut sounded very certain.

But whoever these people were, Jyn knew she wouldn’t like them as much as Baze and Chirrut. She gulped and clenched her jaw to hold back the urge to cry. Cassian squeezed her knee again and started talking to Baze about moving plans and how much of their furniture they’d be taking with them. With that as a smokescreen, she was able to pull herself together a little.

“When are you moving out?” Cassian asked. “Let us help with that at least.”

“Leia and Han wanted an early possession date since their child is due very soon. The first week in December.” 

“But that's just two weeks away!” Jyn yelped.

Chirrut looked apologetic. “I wish we’d been able to tell you sooner, but it all happened quite suddenly. We didn't even make the final decision and sign the papers until yesterday.”

Jyn tried not to show how much the news depressed her, but she doubted she concealed it from anyone. Baze even hugged her when they said goodnight. “Don’t be so sad, little sister. You can come and see us anytime.”

“It won’t be the same,” she said despondently.

“Nothing ever is,” Chirrut said, and Baze rolled his eyes at his husband’s serene philosophy.

“You never expected to make friends with Baze and Chirrut,” Cassian tried to reason with her. “Maybe the new neighbours will be surprisingly nice, too.”

Jyn doubted it. She’d hit the jackpot with Mr and Mr Nice; she didn’t think she’d ever have as good luck again. But at least she could try to pay forward the good will. This time, she was determined to be the nice neighbour, or else.

 

Leia was tiny—shorter than Jyn, which made her feel better even if it was petty. She also looked exhausted. Long brown hair dangled in a messy braid down her back and her oversized bulky sweatshirt had spit-up stains on the front. 

“Hello?” she said, confused.

“Hi.” Jyn thrust a foil-covered pan of chicken enchiladas at her. “I’m Jyn, I live next door and this is my boyfriend Cassian. Nice to meet you.”

Leia took the pan from her hands with an absent smile. “I’m sorry, we have a newborn and my brain is fried at the moment. Did you say you both live next door?”

“Just Jyn,” Cassian cut in smoothly. “But we hope you’ll let us know if there’s anything we can do. Baze and Chirrut told us all about you so we’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

Leia’s deep brown eyes lit up with her smile. “Aren’t they great? Luke’s learned so much from them, and I couldn’t believe how lucky we were that they were thinking of selling this place. It seems like a great neighbourhood.”

“It’s pretty nice,” Jyn said.

A tall man with a big nose came out of the kitchen holding a very small, wailing baby to his chest. “Leia, the bandit needs another top-up,” he shouted. He stopped short in the hallway at the sight of the open door. “Hi.”

“Han, these are the neighbours, Jyn and Cassian—that’s my partner Han and our son, Ben.” 

The baby kept crying while Han tried to juggle him with one arm. 

“God, how can he be hungry again already? The kid’s a bottomless pit,” Leia groaned.

“Um, well, I just wanted to come over and say hi.” Jyn elbowed Cassian. Time for a quick exit. “We’ll let you get back to it now.”

As they walked back to her house, Cassian linked fingers with Jyn and swung their hands between them. “They seemed nice.”

“I guess. Definitely confirmed my lack of interest in ever having kids.” Jyn pulled a face. “That poor woman looks like she hasn’t slept in a month.”

Cassian hummed in acknowledgement. “Probably not, given the age of that baby.”

Jyn took a deep breath and tightened her grip on Cassian’s hand. “So Bodhi says your lease is up at the end of the year.”

“That’s true.”

She darted a look sideways, but Cassian’s face was carefully blank. She bit her lip. “I thought—um, I wondered if you were going to renew it? Or look for a new place? Or maybe you could stay here?” 

“Jyn.” He stopped walking and she halted too, held back by his hand in hers. He tugged her arm and pulled her around to face him, reaching for her other hand. “Are you asking me to move in with you?” 

“Maybe?” she hedged. She couldn’t look him in the eye, so she focused on the icy sidewalk between her boots. “I mean, if you’d like to? I can ask Mothma to draw up any kind of contract you want, if you’re worried about how to split the bills or—”

“Hey.” He put his hand under her chin and nudged it up. “I’m not a property lawyer, I don’t care about that. Do you really want me to move in? I didn’t think you liked sharing your space—and that’s fine. So you don’t have to ask me unless you’re sure.”

Jyn cleared her throat. “I don’t mind sharing with you. Besides, it’s practical. I like your cooking, and a roommate would help pay off the mortgage faster.”

“True,” he said solemnly, although his dimple flashed with his one-sided smile. 

“And I already know that you snore and hog the covers. So unless you have any other deep dark secrets, I’m okay with it.”

“In that case, I would love to move in with you.” Cassian wrapped her up in his arms and Jyn sighed at the sense of security that always blanketed her when he did that. She laid her cheek against his blue parka and he kissed the top of her head. 

She raised her head and lifted her mouth for a kiss. He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her chin while she whined in annoyance and tried to capture his lips, but Cassian was in a teasing mood and being uncooperative. Jyn started walking backward, towing him along by his hands. Every few steps, she darted forward to kiss him before he could lean away. 

She backed up the steps to her house— _their_ house, soon—and flailed one hand behind her, feeling for the doorknob. When she opened the door, the weight of the two of them leaning on it swung it open so quickly they nearly fell to the floor. Cassian laughed and caught her with one arm, bracing the other against the wall. 

Jyn pulled her mouth away from his just long enough to say, “Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know how it ended on Tumblr, here's [the final installment](https://incognitajones.tumblr.com/post/160701465289/massachusettesgooglehistory%20) in the epic saga of Mr & Mr Nice.


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